Wednesday, January 25, 2017

It's been a long week for most of us. Friday .... well I just wanted to hide under a bed, or in a bed, or really anywhere I could get away from Facebook/TV/Media in general. Then I got dragged to an actual fucking inauguration party!

Thankfully the host had provisions, and didn't turn the TV on!

I spent the rest of the weekend taking it easy, you know only about a beer/hour.

Finally I made it back out today. I was told I had to work if I wanted any more beer.

I made friends!

Now I'm all juiced up and ready to go for next week. Could someone please tell my caretakers that I suck at chores/work?!? I'd rather just have some purple drank and wake up for the next game.

Didn’t I tell you I'd do it, that this would happen? Women. Tons of them. Hungry. Disheveled. Unkempt. Walking around. Holding things up. Flexing their vocal chords. Some of them wearing makeup; most not. Some of them dressed nicely; most wearing hiking boots and shirts with happy stick figures. All of them getting much-needed exercise for yours truly: me.I think it’s clear- I’m the most eligible and sought-after man in America, my America. And women know it. They’re out in the streets, the most grabbable of places to locate one’s self. They’re worried that there’s only one of me, only one truly great enough to satisfy whatever it is those tiny brains want. Probably cheese. Am I cheese? I’m the head cheese. Super cheesy. Like sharp cheddar- and orange to boot!What was I talking about? Oh yeah, they want what the most nimble of hands can do. Not those stubby, calloused, veiny hands of those mouth breathers, but the hands of a genius. Like raccoon hands with thumbs that get all the hard-to-reach places. The G-spot: located cleverly between the F-spot and the H-spot. Can’t find it? Carpet bomb all 3 and find an Eastern European woman whose never heard of any of them. Satisfaction is a sliding scale and she’s gotta make weigh-ins!Keep your business here and your dirty little mouths shut. And don’t even think about going to whichever bar you want. This is my kickball league and you will eat Toss’ floppy, fart-smelling pizza and like it! No parking? Get a driver and stop being poor! He can idle in front of Torchy’s and eat a bag of their overrated tacos- exactly how you’ll end up when you drunkenly take home whatever’s left lurking around the corn hole boards. Your breath smells like farts and their face looks like a butt. A match made in toilet heaven.We got your money and you got a weak social circle so lube up and drink some Bud Light because it’s the best beer, I just had some, outstanding, great people, those Buds. And you’re gonna need it because you have the personality of a nasty woman scientist and should be locked up in a zoo. What else? Oh yeah, Toss has the best stuffed pretzels. Absolutely not made out of hobo dick cheese. That’s real cheese and you know it. The pretzels, not the hobo dicks. Go Pats!

Conflict erupted on the ClubWaka Austin Facebook group this week. It reminded me of a similar argument I witnessed 25 years ago on the playground at Thompson Elementary. Here is the schoolyard story....

--- Scene 1 ---

Four 3rd graders are hanging out in the center of the playground. This playground is vast with jungle gyms, teeter-totters, monkey bars, and tether ball on one end. The other end of the playground consists of slides and that spinny thing that makes you sick.

Child 1: "Hey check this out! We are playing on the slides."
Child 4: "Why are you playing on that side of the field, that is so last year."
Child 2: "We don't like that side of the field because tetherball sucks!"
Child 3: "But you should check out these slides, fun for everybody"

Child 4: "What does this have to do with tether ball? This game is really fun and you guys are pretty good at tetherball"
Child 1: "We just want to have fun."
Child 2: "Ever since we started playing that kid that powerslams the ball, the game has lost it's fun. That kid is in the 5th grade should only play with the 5th graders. He does even join everybody when we play tag. He just plays tetherball."

Child 3: "Ya, he won't even play tag!"
Child 2: "We used to have fun playing tetherball when everybody played tag also, but this year that 5th grader doesn't play tag so we won't play on that side of the field.
Child 4: "I've seen you guys powerslam on people! Just because someone doesn't play tag doesn't make them lame. He likes tetherball, he practices tetherball, so he is going to be good at tetherball."
Child 2: "It's not about winning at tetherball. He takes it too serious."

Child 3: "Ya, we only get 30 minutes of recess, we are going to make our own fun playing tag. Plus, nobody is ever on that side of the field anymore. The teeter-totter is broken."

Child 2: "Stop being hall monitor and telling us what to do!"

Child 4: "I'm not a hall monitor anymore, I am telling you that you shouldn't play on that side of the field just because of tetherball."
Child 1: "I don't appreciate being told what to fucking do! I'm sorry that I have powerslammed before. I try to tell people not to and explain that this is a 'Play' Ground."

Child 4: "You cursed! I'm telling"
--- End Scene 1 ----

--- Scene 2 ---

After child 4 tattled on the other students, the teacher spoke to each separately to discuss the argument. She then sat them down together to get to a resolution.
Teacher: "I have listened to you all individually and I have done what I can to make the playground enjoyable for everybody. I tried to schedule your recess to not overlap with the 5th grade as often. We will have the new hall monitor make sure everybody gets equal play time with tetherball."
Child 4: "They are just upset that they are losing. And think that if you play tetherball, you should play tag to be fun."
Child 2: "How about we have different recess times for the 3rd graders and the 5th graders?"

Child 3: "But teacher..."
Teacher: "No buts...I've done everything I can do. Quit being mean to the ex hall monitor."
Child 3: "We don't have a problem with the hall monitor. We like the hall monitor. We just wanted people to join us on the slides."
Child 4: "Sorry, I just want you to play with us on this side of the field."
Child 1: "You should still come over and play on the slides. More space for activities."

--- End Scene 2 ---

Moral of the story:

Friday, January 13, 2017

You might be asking what the fuck is going on with the schedule. To that I say, watch your fucking language, there are kids around. Let’s get your brain meat warm so you can learn yourself some kickball ingenuity.

Origin story: A long long time ago in a gillis far away, there were two leagues. One was for the good teams, one was for the ….. other teams. This worked out greatish, actually terribly. The first thing that happened was that the “good” league had fewer teams who wanted to play in it. That’s no fun, so the league (a partially owned subsidiary of GLOBOCHEM an explosives and surgery beverage firm) decided it would choose which teams would play in which league. This tyranny was met with an easily rigged, but popular effort for team captains to rank each other on play, musical taste, and effability. Mostly play though. The big problem that some of us visionary heros saw was that teams change from season to season, and you would frequently have teams lose every game in the top division and win every game in the bottom. It was not fun to be on, or play against these teams. What to do?

Manna: God bestows on but few the abilities necessary to address such a conflagration. Lucky are you, dear reader, lucky indeed. Through a quirk of mathematics, geometry, and to a lesser extent, black magic the leagues were united under the provision that teams would play other similarly skilled teams, with a few games sprinkled in for variety. Below is the format, where the rows and colums are the teams, grey squares are scheduled games between them, and the numbers in them are the relativistic mismatch of the teams. Higher numbers indicate bigger mismatches. We wanted to keep this number low.

Now for the schedule, this is interesting, at least to me. I don’t have a mathematical proof to this effect, but I’m willing to bet a lot of money that there is only one way to ensure every team plays one game a week. AAAAAnnd we found it.

The numbers are the week the game takes place, and the final row is they bye week. As a coincidence of nature each bye week has just two teams off, and amazingly, they are always teams that play each other at some point during the season. After much thought and sacrificial burnings, we decided to throw in an extra game. The bye week games are just that.

For which fields and times, that was also done with a culturally progressive flourish

The Blowback: All great innovations are met with skepticism, luddites, and village people with torches. This is no different. I understand that some people will lose more games this way, but other will win more. As a matter of fact, I guarantee there will be the same number of wins as losses. I am THAT confident. As for “fairness” the only complaint is not with the schedule, but with the preseason rankings. Mind you, that burden was previously placed only on the middle 6 or so teams, now we all share it. But again, this system is BETTER for next seasons preseason rankings. It is much easier to tell which teams are how good when you can see their overall playing ability against a wider range.

Rankings: This will be the crowning achievement, and yet we have too little data to test the model. A form of power ranking similar to algorithms for college basketball is being used to determine team rank. This will be provided to all the captains hopefully in season, but more importantly, during the preseason rankings next season.

In conclusion: This is good. You are bad for not liking it. You should feel bad about feeling the way you do.

But seriously, I’d like to hear everyones thoughts. I really think this is a better way forward, but if you disagree, I really want to hear it. Thanks -Ted

It'll be a wild and crazy game of who wore the best onesies. There might be some purple drank (we'll see), there may be some points scored, but we definitely know there will be some trash talking! Kia thinks we'll tie... I guess you can still tie at 0-0. This will definitely be one to watch, or just hang out near!

Sunday, January 8, 2017

I awoke in a daze on a bathroom floor, eyes and lips plastered shut by the seed of a dozen truck drivers, and thought to myself: it's time to make a change. 2017 will be different. 2017 will be better.

1. Let's get more truckers in the mix this year. They don't make them like they used to. Cleanly shaven and intelligible- how disappointing. History has taught us that quantity can't replace quality, but history has limited itself to DPs and 3Ps. History is Bea Arthur's pristine hymen: a fleshy DMZ.

2. Condoms are stupid. You're constantly reminded not to hand plastic bags to your baby so why would you suffocate your first-born mouth to feed. The hog's gotta eat and a dental dam ain't no South Beach diet. Which brings me to my next topic-

3. What's for dinner? Let's eat more butts. What else are they there for, decoration? Probably should bedazzle my butthole, but I won't give that a separate bullet point.

4. Butts are a two-way hole and, therefore, very much a two-way street. Let's get our butts eaten more. And don't phone it in- really get in there and hit all the crannies. These things are nature's, well, buttholes. You come up with a good butthole simile. Sitting there judging me. Fuck you, motherfucker!

5. Put up with less shit from you. That's right. You've been a cocksucker from the start. I can't wait till your bitchface gets mouth cancer. Trump's America!

6. Positivity. Let's get real zen in 2017. Tell people we're spiritual and just work on ourselves. The universe is a swirling toilet around us and really wants us to figure something out.

Well that's about it. 2016 has killed and 2017 will kill even more. Let's agree to grab it by the pussy!